Posts in "Intellectual Property"

Intellectual property is an extremely divisive yet often overshadowed subject of debate between liberty-minded folk. Some embrace all forms of IP, while others completely reject all IP. This article falls into the latter.

Intellectual property is a vital topic to understand for many reasons, not the least of which is the current and ongoing battle for Internet freedom and privacy. Although SOPA, PIPA, and CISPA were all defeated*, politicians, backed by lobbyists seeking monopolistic privileges, will continue to sneak onto the Congressional floor in new disguises.

But more fundamentally, IP is an essential area of libertarian philosophy because it cuts directly to the root of all libertarianism and indeed liberty itself: property rights.

Anti-libertarian "libertarian” Ayn Rand once wrote that, “Patents and copyrights are the legal implementation of the base of all property rights: a man’s right to the product of his mind.”

Rand would agree that if a man carves a statue by carving it from a block of marble, he is the rightful owner of the statue. But is it the “creation” of the statue by sculpting it that grants him the right to ownership, or was it the preceding ownership of the marble itself? Suppose that the same man carves a statue from someone else’s block of marble. It is clear that he has no right to ownership of the resulting statue, despite mixing his labor with it and exerting his intellectual faculties in its production.

Therefore, the mere “creation” of a product is not sufficient to establish property rights. Instead, property rights are based on

More specifically, at its essential theoretical core, beyond the artifice of legal fiat: what is property?

Somewhat broadly, property is anything that satisfies each of the following requirements: property is scarce; property possesses objective (intersubjectively ascertainable) borders; and property has a determinable temporal genesis.

The theory of intellectual property (IP) posits that two distinct genera of proprietary resources exist — tangible and ideal — and that, while formally differentiable, they are fully compatible within a logically constructed theory of property. In essence, both tangible and ideal resources are property.

For the sake of argument, assume the truth and tenability of the IP theory — that ideal resources are, in fact, property. Assume that every idea, pattern, design, and conception meets all three of the aforementioned necessary requirements to be classified as such. Ultimately, assume that the theory of intellectual property is legitimate and fits harmoniously within a broader theory of property rights.

What, then, are the logical implications of such an assumption?

To begin, all property can be owned — i.e., fully and exclusively controlled. As economist Ludwig von Mises writes, "Ownership means full control of the services that can be derived from a good." The process by which an individual acquires exclusive control over a proprietary resource can be either legitimate (peaceful and just) or illegitimate (aggressive and unjust). Legitimate means of acquiring ownership involve voluntary title transfer by contract, including by sale, rent, or gift. In contradistinction, theft is the prime example of illegitimate ownership acquisition.

Last month, the Global Intellectual Property Center (GIPC), in conjunction with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, released a report evaluating intellectual property (IP) laws in eleven different countries. The report used five general categories—patent law, copyright law, trademark law, enforcement thereof, and participation in international treaties—as a basis for evaluation. The United States was ranked the highest of those studied, meaning its IP protection is the strongest in the world; worst among the eleven were Russia, Brazil, China, and India.

Brazil, Russia, China, and India have something else in common, however. Despite weak IP protection, these four countries have the fastest-growing emerging economies. In a February 2012 report by Price Waterhouse Coopers, these four countries—the “BRIC” nations—had average annual growth rates between five and nine percent in terms of GDP, up to three times the growth rate of the U.S.

Another recent report issued by the Republican Study Committee (RSC) indicates a shift in—or, at the very least, a questioning of—the general milieu surrounding IP protection. The paper, entitled “Three Myths about Copyright Law and Where to Start to Fix It” was authored by Derek S. Khanna, who was later removed from the RSC amidst intense backlash from the entertainment industry. Before being retracted, Khanna’s analysis concluded that overzealous copyright law was responsible for “retard[ing] the creation of a robust DJ/remix industry,…hampering scientific inquiry, [and] penalizing legitimate journalism and oversight.” He also offered different ideas for IP reforms, including limiting the length of time a work can remain under copyright.

According to BBC, Facebook is being sued for its use of the "Like" button.

It seems that Joannes Jozef Everardus van Der Meer—a quintessential Dutch name if there ever was one—patented a "Like" button for his primitive social networking site Surfbook in 1998.

Van Der Meer passed away in 2004, leaving his patents in the hands of Rembrandt Social Media.

Tom Melsheimer, an attorney for the patent holder, said the following:

We believe Rembrandt's patents represent an important foundation of social media as we know it, and we expect a judge and jury to reach the same conclusion based on the evidence.

This case highlights the gross absurdities of the idea and system of intellectual "property," a topic that has come under increased scrutiny as of late, what with the SOPA and PIPA uproar and the infamous battle between Apple and Samsung, in which millions upon millions of dollars were spent on arguments over objects that looked alike.

As I am not libertarian, I was interested to read their point of view. In particular, Aheram asserts that copyright itself, by virtue of its government-granted monopolistic status, is an illegitimate infringement on sovereign private property rights. I suspect that others - even other libertarians - might not agree there, though I see the logic that is being followed.

I am reminded of arguments made by Stewart Baker (whom I read through Volokh Conspiracy, itself often a home for libertarian thought). In an op-ed published in the Hollywood Reporter, Baker argues that Tea Party conservatives played a major role in swinging Republican sentiment against SOPA.

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If Baker is right, then we really do need more pieces like Aheram’s to reach out to untapped or skeptical communities and help them see where their political freedoms and Internet freedoms overlap.

As I noted before, I really hope that young libertarians will realize that copyright laws are being used vehicles to develop the tools of oppression which will pose massive threats to free speech and private property rights. With the near-passage of SOPA, libertarians of all stripes cannot afford to remain ignorant of the Copyfight.

Michael Geist’s keynote address discussing “the role of digital activism in countering bills like SOPA and the ongoing copyfight over the use of WIPO, ACTA, and aggressive laws to promote restrictive copyright rules.”

On Jan. 18, the world was audience to the one of the most visible online activism yet in Internet history. Taking part in the 24-hour protest were thousands of websites and millions of Internet users going head-to-head with Hollywood to oppose a pair of anti-piracy bills — the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) — currently making its way through Congress.

Leading the charge were Wikipedia, Google, Craigslist and several other Internet heavyweights which blacked out their websites or otherwise called attention to the anti-piracy bills. More important than just calling attention to these bills, the many websites mobilized users to directly contact legislators’ offices.

Just how effective were the protests? According to the Los Angeles Times, 162 million people directly experienced Wikipedia’s blackout. Additionally, 8 million users looked up their representatives in Congress. Reports suggest that the online activism led to an avalanche of real-world activism as thousands took to calling their representatives’ offices.

Senator Amy Klobuchar has introduced a bill S. 978, which would make it a criminal act to post movie clips or video of games online. This includes videos that are not downloadable and that are simply video clips of you taping what is happening on your own TV screen.

This has particularly enraged gamers as online walkthroughs or instructions to unlock achievements in a video game would become illegal. This means no more Youtubing how to defeat Nazi Zombies or how to unlock the sweetest gun in Halo.

Perhaps the worst part of the bill can be summed up from this paragraph of the story:

Critics of the bill believe that it could create extensive "gray areas" in the law, empowering prosecutors with huge amounts of discretion to target Web Sites, indiviudal internet users, or even entire video platforms like Youtube or Vimeo.

Although the story does not go as far to call this bill an assault on free speech or a shifty tactic to enforce the intellectual property racket, I will.

When Jesus fed the 5000 with five loaves of bread and two fish, he was pirating food. Some baker worked to make that bread and some fisherman worked to catch those fish. If Jesus hadn't copied the food over and over again then the people would have had to buy more bread from the baker and more fish from the fishermen.

If you can endlessly copy bread and fish without cost then the fish and bread industries might suffer. Jesus could buy one loaf and one fish and have plenty of food for himself and even give it away to his friends. Then no one needs to buy fish or bread anymore.

I fail to see how Jesus' actions are any different from modern-day “software piracy.” One person buys a song and copies it endlessly for free and gives it away to other people.

The argument today is that it is wrong to copy music and videos without paying the people that produced them. It seems to me that Jesus made a very clear statement about this and he doesn't seem to feel that making and sharing copies of products is immoral.

The owner of Luke's Lounge, a small bar and long-time music venue in downtown Dixon, was informed late last year that he could not have live music in his bar unless he payed exorbitant licensing fees to the ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers). Here is part of a local article on the matter:

The bar no longer hosts live performances because of the cost of license fees that The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) demands for live performances. It’s a fee that Luke’s Lounge owner Nate Luke said he is no longer willing to pay.

ASCAP is an organization that represents 400,000 or more U.S. composers, songwriters, lyricists, and music publishers of every kind of music, according to its web site.

ASCAP said it protects its members through licensing and collecting royalties for public performances of their work. Known among musicians as “the collection society,” ASCAP also said it makes giving and obtaining permission to perform music “simple for both creators and users of music.”

Risk of IP lawsuits are a major concern for unlicensed music venues. I believe that IP and copyright laws need to be changed to make it less risky for smaller music venues so that the form of legal extortion can be stopped. This is literally a "pay to play" situation. Read the whole story here.